All Stirred Up

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Don Filcek; Haggai 1:12-15 All Stirred Up

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You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church from Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak preaches from his series on the book of Haggai, Realigning Priorities.
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Let's listen in. Good morning. Welcome to Recast Church.
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I'm Don Filsak. I'm the lead pastor here and we gather together this morning to grow in our faith. Amen. I hope that that's why you're here, is to grow in faith.
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Hopefully you can look around and see that you're not alone and that gives you strength and courage to face another week.
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I recognize that a lot of times it can feel like we're going it alone out there and the week presses in and the world presses in and we come together to get kind of a reset on our week and so I hope that that's what you're getting here.
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We also gather together to join our voices in praise to the only one who is worthy of praise, the only one who is worthy of our adoration and our accolades.
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We come to hear from God's own word. He wrote it so that we might know what is true of him.
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The lies will crowd out all kinds of stuff in our lives and there are so many various types of lies that we tell ourselves, that the world tells us, that the media tells us, and we need to come back again to be re -centered on the truth of God's word.
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Here at Recast, we're seeking to grow in faith, grow in community, and grow in service. And that's, those are, those are vital.
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And so here this morning growing in faith, but then afterwards we get an opportunity to grow in community, just rubbing shoulders with one another, playing some games out there in the yard and all of that kind of stuff, eating together.
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I'm looking forward to that. I really do mean it when I say I love Sundays. Most of you know this.
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I've said this up front many times. I struggle with stage fright and for years that was a major, major hurdle for me becoming a pastor.
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That's kind of ironic that I'm up here. And all of a sudden I'm thinking about it. But I love Sundays despite the fact that that was a big hurdle and a big struggle.
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I love the gathering of God's people. I absolutely love you guys. And I mean that sincerely. We're going to be back in the book of Haggai this morning, and we're going to see that his message last week, the message that we talked about last week, to consider your ways.
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God speaking through Haggai to the people, consider your ways. And it was successful. And they did.
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They have considered their ways now when we come to this passage this morning. And this place is
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Haggai in the rare category of successful prophets. Those two words don't go together frequently in Scripture.
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Successful prophet. He shares this with the likes of Jonah and only a select other few prophets that were successful in declaring
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God's word and the people repenting and turning from their sins and heeding what God had to say.
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Jeremiah didn't get that treatment. Neither did Isaiah. Neither did Ezekiel. They were actually persecuted for speaking
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God's word. But we will see in our text this morning the response of the people to the command of God to consider their ways.
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As far as introducing the text, it's good to look at the actions that take place. This is going to be a short passage this morning.
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So looking at those actions are helpful for us to understand the structure. Watch the people. Watch what they do.
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They obey and they fear and they work. Watch the prophet. He faithfully speaks all of the truth that God gives him to convey.
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And watch what the Lord does. Whenever you read Scripture, watch for what God is doing in it.
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And here we're going to see him send. We're going to see him speak. We're going to see him comfort. And we're going to see him stir up hearts.
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And that's my, by the way, that's my fundamental prayer for all of us this morning is that he would stir up our hearts. Awaken us.
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Stir us up from within. Our text is short, but it reveals a lot about the faithfulness of God to call out a people for his own glory.
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That's what he's doing here, even in our midst. And it also highlights the need for his people to respond to his word.
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Respond to his word. Respond. Before we read this, let me throw out a common problem that this passage is seeking to address for us.
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The people of God down through the ages have had a tendency to hear God's word, agree that something must change, something's got to change, and then go about our daily lives without changing a single thing.
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It reminds me of what James says in his little, his little epistle about looking in a mirror. You wake up in the morning.
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Imagine that you wake up in the morning all disheveled. You look in a mirror and it's like, man, my hair is all over the place and I got smudges on my face and a new zit is formed and all kinds of stuff.
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And then I just go, like, get dressed and go. And I don't change anything. Nothing changes.
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And that's what it's like when we come to the Bible without any change, without doing something about it.
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Well, there's a comb, there's a brush, there's all different kinds of things to change if we would take into account
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God's word. There's a huge danger for all of us in becoming just flippantly familiar with God's word, to become inoculated to God's word.
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It's good to hear it. It is a good thing when we take it in. It is a good thing to memorize it, to study it, to know it.
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And yet, it is a much, much, much better thing to heed it, to pay attention to it in a way that leads to obedience, to be changed in the believing of it.
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That's what we mean when we talk about growing in our faith is taking God's word and living it out.
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To hear his word, believe it, and then realign our lives accordingly. This sermon series, the short sermon series in Haggai is actually called realigning priorities because that's exactly the call through this ancient text by the prophet
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Haggai. God is speaking to us. Before we read it, think about it. God is going to speak to us, each one of us, and he is calling us all to a loving obedience to him.
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An obedience that trusts his goodness. An obedience and a trust that knows that he is with us and he is for us, church.
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An obedience that highlights a mysterious glory here in the text. Our father, through his loving faithfulness, stirs up his people to an obedience from the heart.
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So let's open our Bibles. If you're not already there, open your devices to Haggai chapter one. We'll be looking at just verses 12 through 15.
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So these four verses here, Haggai 1, 12 through 15, God's holy word to us recast.
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This is what he desires for us to take in. This is God speaking to us to stir us up this morning.
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Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the
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Lord their God. And the words of Haggai the prophet, as the Lord their God had sent him.
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And the people feared the Lord. Then Haggai the messenger of the Lord spoke to the people with the
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Lord's message. I am with you, declares the Lord. And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people.
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And they came and worked on the house of the Lord of hosts, their God, on the 24th day of the month, in the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king.
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Let's pray as the band comes up to lead us in worship. Father, we're all awake here.
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Whether an alarm went off or we just naturally wake up at the same time every morning, we were awakened to a new day, a new opportunity to bring glory to you.
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Happens to be a Sunday, so here we are gathered together in your name. But we recognize that we need more than just an awakening of our bodies.
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We need an awakening of our souls. We need a stirring up within us to recognize your holiness, your worthiness, your presence with us, both for conviction and for encouragement.
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The things that you desire to change in us are real, and I pray that you would help us all to recognize that, even as we're gathered together in this place.
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Diverse people with a bunch of different backgrounds, a bunch of different histories, a bunch of different things going on in our weeks.
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Concerns about the future, concerns about the past, concerns about relationships that are either broken or are healing, concerns about health.
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Father, so many things that press in and would seek to snatch this message from our hearts, but Father, I pray that you would stir us up to your glory, stir us up to your worship, stir us up in a way that awakens us to you.
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Father, even through these songs and through these lyrics, I ask that as we have an opportunity to mingle our voices together in worship to you this morning,
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I pray that you would stir us up in the singing, in the gathering of your people, in the opportunity that we have to rejoice in the sacrifice that has been made to draw us near to you, and that you are indeed with us.
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You are with your people. You are here present to receive our worship, and I ask that you would receive it in the gladness with which it's offered in Jesus' name.
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Amen. All right, yeah, go ahead and be seated and re -find your place in your
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Bibles or your devices in Haggai chapter 1 verses 12 through 15. If at any time during the message you need to get up and get more coffee, juice, or donut holes,
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I think there's a lot more back there, so take advantage of that. You're not going to distract me, but our goal is over the remainder of our time to spend focused on God's Word.
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This short little book describes a historical realignment of God's people to God as priority, not just merely to doing things, and I think sometimes we can have a tendency to go, okay, if God meets me, then there's a bunch of stuff
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I need to go do, but if God meets with you, He becomes the priority. He becomes the thing.
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Now, that is going to result in some action. That's going to result in some behavior. True faith in God and seeing
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Him as He is, glorious and exalted, is going to lead to God being not just a priority, but the priority in your life.
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The context in this passage is that the people of God are returning to the land of Israel.
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They're coming back from the land of Persia after a couple of generations of being exiled there.
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So, it's likely that the people that are returning to the land never actually were in it to begin with.
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Their parents came over to Babylon, and their grandparents rather were exported… exported, that's not the right word… exiled to… yeah, same idea, but people versus goods,
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I think. They were exiled there, grandparents exiled there, and now we've got a generation of people returning to the land.
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And when they first returned, they were given an important command that makes sense of the entire book of Haggai. They were given a command by God through Ezra, really.
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Ezra records it for us. It was actually the mouth of the pagan king Cyrus that was used to give this edict to the people of God.
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And it was an edict for them to return to their land, rebuild their temple, and re -establish the worship of their
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God there. Now, we know that that is a covenant relationship. That's the old covenant of the sacrificial system that it was… that was involved in that temple sacrifice and all of that.
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So, they started the building project when they first got back under the instructions of God, and then as you might imagine… as you can imagine it being possible, the project got stalled out as the pressure of taking care of themselves crept in.
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Instructions by God, build my temple, gets crowded out by them building stuff for themselves.
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Last week, we saw the indictment against the people of God that they're busy running around fixing up their own homes and living in opulent paneled houses.
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The text tells us they are… they are taking care of themselves. They are taking care of their own digs at the exclusion of the instructions that God gave to take care of his house first.
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So, while the temple is still in a pile of rubble, they are busy, busy, busy taking care of their own places to live.
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His instructions to the people was to consider their ways. That's what we saw last week repeated twice.
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They have lacked peace. They have lacked satisfaction. They have lacked joy because they have not put
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God and the worship of him as the highest of priorities. They are… they are miserable because they're not worshiping.
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They are miserable because they're designed and made to worship. They're instructed to worship. They're commanded to worship, and they're not doing that which
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God has designed them to do. So, that's where we stand when we come to verse 12 here in our text.
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That's… that catches up to speed a little bit. Haggai has spoken the word, the word of God, to the leadership of Israel, that is the governor's rubble and Joshua the high priest.
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The call was to consider their ways and then get back to building the temple.
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And the Lord threatened drought as part of that call to return to him. We'll talk a little bit more about that threat here in a minute.
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But, so our text this week, in our text, we're going to see three movements that really make our outline.
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And it's, again, it's a short passage, but there's three points. The response of the people, verse 12.
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The response of the prophet, verse 13. And the response of the Lord, verse 14, 15 being a little bit of just a date there that gives us the timeline for this.
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So, the response of the people, the response of the prophet, and the response of the Lord. Now, remember that the central command from God to the people last week was a repeated call, twice mentioned, consider your ways, and just a few verses there.
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It was, you know, when they recorded this on ink and parchment and chiseled it out, it all came into, it was all valuable.
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But two times the prophet says, consider your ways. Obedience to this command, if they are actually going to follow through on what
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God has told them to do through Haggai, then they must consider their ways.
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Thoughtful reflection on how they've been living and how that's been going for them is part of the obedience that they must have, they must have taken on.
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And so, the obedient responses must involve a first step of considering, take a minute to think, and then the second step of action.
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And I would suggest to you that God really does desire that of us. Stop and think, stop and listen, stop and heed, consider your life, consider how it's going for you, consider if it's actually comfortable the way that you're living in.
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Are you really pleased? Are you really satisfied? Or are you living in dissatisfaction with opulence, with plenty, and you're still dissatisfied?
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Always enough to drink, but never satisfied. Always enough to eat, but always hungry.
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Always enough material things, but always wanting just a little bit more.
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So, we see the response of the people of God to the call of God to return to a more central worship of God, that's our first point.
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The response of the people is a response of the people of God to the call of God to return to the more central worship of God.
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The governor Zerubbabel and Joshua, the high priest, along with all the remnant of the people, took to heart the voice of the
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Lord their God as spoken through the words of Haggai, the prophet. They took it to heart, we see in verse 12.
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And verse 12 expressly states emphatically that Haggai is a chosen mouthpiece for God.
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He is a prophet. The text goes over the top to emphasize that he is prophetic, he is speaking on God's behalf.
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It's even reiterated in verse 13 where he is the messenger who brings the message of God. The terminology that's used in Hebrew is emphatic, you need to pay attention to this guy because he's speaking the very words of God.
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The prophetic designation is very important if God's people are going to have confidence in the command. How many of you know that you got to have some confidence that God is speaking, for example, through the
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Bible in order to obey it? Otherwise, scrap it, right? But if this is God's word, if God speaks and if his spirit has laid this down with pen to parchment, then this is valuable, this is important, this is significant, this is central to our lives.
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And that's what is being said of Haggai here to give us confidence, but most importantly to give those ancient people confidence that this is indeed a dude who is speaking
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God's words. And they are convinced that this man is chosen by God to speak for him, and they respond in verse 12 with two primary responses.
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First, they obeyed. It says that in the text, they obeyed. This phrase has a nuance of taking the word of the
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Lord to heart. They did pause. They did take some time to consider their ways as commanded by God through the prophet
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Haggai. They did reflect on the neglect of the worship of God. They did consider their disobedience and leaving the temple in ruins while running around fixing up their own houses.
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And they must have also considered the way that this was resulting in some significant dissatisfaction in their own lives.
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The prophet told them, your dissatisfaction is coming because of your lack of worship. They were missing joy, missing gladness, and never quite feeling fulfilled in the good things that they had.
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And in considering, they are moved to the second response. So they take a moment, they think it through, and they go like, here's what the prophet is saying to us.
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Here's what God is kind of putting his finger on in our lives and saying, you're dissatisfied. You're not following through. You're not really putting me first.
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And the second response is then it says, the people feared the Lord. You see that at the end of verse 12?
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The people feared the Lord. I want us all to consider the way that this often goes in our lives.
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Because to be quite honest, some of you are like, should I be afraid of God? Should I not be afraid of God? I thought that Jesus died on the cross for my sins.
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And you might just kind of live in that moment and think there's some confusion. How many of you would raise your hand and say, I'm sometimes a little confused about the phrase, fear the
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Lord. The fear of the Lord. Some of you sometimes confused about that. I think it's a reasonable thing for us to be concerned about that we might not necessarily get.
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For a sinful human, think about how this works. For a sinful human to pause and consider our ways.
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If we obey that, if you went this week and you, you know, you took that on as a, as an actual like application point from last week's message and you went and you did that,
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I have the feeling that I have some understanding about how that went for you. I don't think it was easy for you.
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I think it was uncomfortable for you. For a sinful human to pause and consider our ways.
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If we obey that command, we will to a person be called up short of God's glory. Short of what it means to truly worship
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Him. Short of what we know to be true from God's word as far as His glory and His honor and the obedience
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He is due and the praise that He's due and the worship that is due Him. How many of you know what
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I'm talking about? When you really think about your life, when you take the quiet moment, which is really hard for us to do, right?
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But when you take the quiet moment and you assess, how many of you would raise your hand and say, I come up short when
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I do that. Like I see conviction. I see need for change. I see need for more worship, more love for Him, more love for each other, more obedience.
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I see that in my life. I'm telling you, that's the reality for me. If I get alone quiet and get alone, walk in the woods alone,
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I walk away feeling a little beat up. Do you know what I'm talking about? And what's the logical response of that?
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Well, when we come to realize, when we come to consider our ways, we realize just how broken we really are.
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And in our moments of considering, God will be faithful to identify for us the places where we are neglecting
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His worship. He will put a finger on our sin. God has always been faithful.
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If I ask Him, God, show me where I'm failing. Show me where I'm walking away from you. Show me where I'm not with you.
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He's faithful to do it. He does it. And it's not very comfortable. And to be quite honest,
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I wonder if that is not a part of the reason that we are such a busy, noisy, loud culture.
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Always something, always a podcast on, always the radio on, always something making noise.
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Never wanting quite to be alone with our thoughts. Anybody relate to what I'm talking about there?
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Always active, always busy. If I have a moment to spare, fill it with Candy Crush or something.
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Well, take a breath and to pause. That could be really scary.
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To take a moment to ask, God, what do you really think of how
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I'm living? What do I really think about how I'm living? In light of God's Word, I think we're fearful of being exposed.
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And that He's gonna expose sin in our lives. And I think that's in part what keeps us from the quiet moments of reflection to consider our ways.
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Now, I wanna remind us all that this passage is written to the remnant, it says in the text, to the remnant of God's people.
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That's an interesting word, remnant. The word remnant is a semi -technical word in the
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Old Testament that routinely refers to those people that God is holding onto for Himself.
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His chosen people. Those in whom He delights and those who delight in Him. These are His chosen people.
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There's another way, this is another way in the Old Testament of basically saying His true church. Those who really worship
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Him. Those who really love Him. Those who really are seeking to live according to His plan and His way.
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And actually with some emotion attached to it. With some love attached to it. Not just merely to get the things that they want out of God, but because He's worthy.
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The remnant is a saved group out of the masses of people. That's the idea of remnant.
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Those that are left. If you were to boil everything else off and you were to get down to the nitty -gritty of who's in love with God and who's all in with Him, that would be the remnant.
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Most of the Jewish people for over 100 years of history coming up to leading up to Haggai's moment, up to his day, most of the
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Jews had gone through some type of routine cultural religious actions. They did the things.
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They made the sacrifices. They offered the prayers. They read the Psalms. They did all of the stuff. They did the things while the indictment of many of the prophets are you do all of these things, but your hearts are far from me.
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It's an indictment on the masses of the religious people, God's chosen people.
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The ones who were supposed to get it. The ones who were given the law. But the remnant are the people who
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God is bringing into His love. They love Him because they recognize His love and care for them.
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And in that sense, we can look around at the world today and we can even look at church and say, well, there's a remnant.
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There are those who love God. And we recognize that at any given point, a church is made up of people who love
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God. And then there are people who are playing church. So two distinct groups of people that look very much alike.
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And only you know which one you are. I don't. I preach to you as though you are the remnant, as though you are the children of God, as though you are all in with Him.
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But I can't, I can't see the difference. The Spirit can press in on you, whether you love Jesus or don't.
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Do you love Him? And are you loved by Him? Do you recognize what He's done for you? And are you, are you being stirred up in passion and love to worship
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Him because of what He's done for you? Are you, are you living in that place? This message, then.
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Well, in this sense, the application. Our application is more focused on those who are in the love of God through Jesus Christ, His Son.
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That's who this passage is applying to in our, if we take it from the old covenant remnant, we take it to the
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New Testament era, and even our era where we live. This is not God speaking to pagans about how to get right with Him.
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This is not a message to the unbeliever saying, build me a temple. Get busy doing stuff.
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And if you do the things, and then you're going to be all right with me. This is God speaking to those who have experienced and received
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His covenant. This message is then more narrowly focused on those who are genuinely already all in with God.
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And He is faithfully calling them. And therefore, He is faithfully calling us back into a priority of obedient worship.
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You see, the one who really loves God can stray. Did you know that? The one who really loves
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God can wake up one morning and realize like, I'm not giving, I'm not putting Christ where He belongs in my life.
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And so, I ask you, why fear? Why fear?
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Why is fear in this text to the remnant, to those who are chosen by God, to those who are in with Him?
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Why fear? And I would suggest to you that wherever an accurate assessment of ourselves is coupled with an accurate assessment of the
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Almighty, fear is a logical response. It makes sense.
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It makes sense if you understand who you are and who God is that there's fear in that equation.
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Do you get what I'm saying? Raise your hand if you can understand that correlation. You see where that connects.
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I am not worthy to even enter His presence. I deserve to be smoked if I even just enter
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His presence with His holiness and His glory and His majesty. Well, fear seems to make a lot of sense there.
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What did Adam and Eve first do after they had taken the fruit and gained the knowledge of good and evil? Their eyes were opened and they saw, oh, there is something.
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There is something that is against God. There is a way of living that is against God, knowledge of good and evil.
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And it was then that they hid in fear from God. Before that, there was perfect love.
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Before that, there was no fear between God and humanity. It says that He would come down and walk with them in the cool of the evening in the garden.
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God walking with His people. But sin produces fear because it produces the knowledge of judgment deserved.
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We begin to realize what we deserve. The people fear in this text because they've considered, because they have taken a moment to pause to think about their lives in light of a holy
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God. And they know that their ways have come up short of bringing pleasure and glory to God as the text, as Haggai called the people.
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He says, if you would just reenter and reengage this relationship with God and reestablish the things that He's called you to and begin that process of rebuilding
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His temple, then that will give Him pleasure and glory. They've not been living out of the design and call that God has placed on their lives.
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They are made to worship. They are designed to praise Him, and they're not doing it. But I want to point out that a movement toward fear is a movement toward awe and wonder and respect for us sinful humans.
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It is sensible. It is logical. It's a byproduct of correct assessment of our lack of holiness and His character of complete holiness.
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But hear me carefully, church. You're going to have those moments. That's going to be real for you where you are going to have fear because you're not holy, because you're not what
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God has made you to be. That's one thing that I know about everybody in this room. I know that many of you, if not most of you,
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I pray that all of you are actually declared righteous in God's eyes through the blood of His Son, Jesus Christ.
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Amen? I also know that you don't live that. I know that none of you do.
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Not a single one of you do. And when we meet another human, one thing that we know we're meeting is another sinner, another person who is broken and is busted.
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And so I know that if you have a desire to please God, there are times when you're disappointed with yourself and you're at least mildly fearful.
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Am I okay? Am I really okay? Can that thought cross my mind and me be okay?
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You know what I'm talking about? I think we all know. But God doesn't leave us in fear, church.
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We'll experience it. We'll have it from time to time. It's logical when we assess. It's logical when we see
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Him in His glory. Oh, how is this going to go down? Isaiah, seeing the
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Lord seated on his throne high and lifted up. And what does he do? Falls flat on his face as the angels are singing, holy, holy, holy.
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And he says, woe is me. I'm undone. This is a prophet.
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I haven't written any scripture. Have you? This is the prophet Isaiah, big chunk of scripture written through him.
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And he says, I'm undone. I'm broken. I'm busted. I'm expecting the lightning to strike any second for me to be toast.
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That's his response in the presence of God. Reasonable fear, a reasonable fear of justice and judgment.
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But in our return to Him, God doesn't leave us there. When we come into contact with His word, conviction is often a regular response.
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That's true. But God also includes on the mouth of His messenger, the peace our hearts need to hear in those moments of fear.
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Not only does Haggai call the people to consider their ways, not only does he threaten the discipline of the
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Lord, but in the second movement of the text, we find the second thing, the response of the prophet in verse 13.
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Haggai is faithful, faithful, faithful to bring the whole counsel of God. And that counsel includes the glorious hope that God is with His people.
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The words of Haggai, the messenger of God in verse 13 reflect the actual message of Yahweh, Jehovah, our
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God. These are God's very words spoken to His old covenant remnant in the fall, the autumn of 520
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BC. And He comforts them in their fear with the following very direct phrase, I am with you.
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I'm with you. But do you think He knew that they were fearful? Do you think that He knew that they were terrified?
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Do you think that they were, He knew that they were paralyzed in awe and wonder of Him? Yes. And He says,
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I'm with you. I'm with you. Now, I want to point out that there is one way that His people receive that phrase, and there's another way that those who do not trust
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His goodness process that phrase, and they are very different ways. When God says, I am with you, you either think one of, you think one of two thoughts.
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I'm with you can sound very threatening to the one who doesn't know the kindness, mercy, and covenant faithfulness and steadfast love of our
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Father. If you don't know that about Him, I am with you sounds like a threat.
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I thought that for years. Whenever I thought God is with me, I thought, oh no. When I was a kid,
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I heard that a lot, and I was like, oh, God's watching. And if you have a parent that kind of reminded you that God was watching you, you know,
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He's watching you. Sounds threatening to the one who doesn't know the kindness, and the mercy, and the covenant faithfulness of God.
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But to the one who hasn't tasted to see the Lord is good, I am with you is a very scary phrase.
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But to those who know the great mercy, and kindness, and patience of our God, those who have tasted and seen that He is good,
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His presence is a joy. It is an empowering, refreshing, like a stream in a dry and desert place.
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His presence, His promise of presence. It's like a KFC buffet after a long day of hiking up and down a mountain.
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Real experience that I had. I had to crush that buffet. It's like all light, and all hope, and all help, and all rescue when everything seems hopeless, and He breaks in to rescue.
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I am with you like that. The response of the prophet is to keep speaking His words, to not end with the bad news, but to share the full glory of God.
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He is worthy of our worship. It is reasonable to be moved to fear in our hearts when we fail to obey.
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But there is great strength found in the reminder that our God is faithful to be with His people.
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He will be present to sustain, church. He will be present to help. He will be present to forgive.
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He will be present to restore. He will be present to do the last thing that we see in this text, and really the center of which everything revolves.
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In verse 14, we encounter the response of the Lord to this movement among His people, and we find that He is driving the movement among His people.
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The Lord, Yahweh, the Almighty Lord of hosts, as He said it, as He was declared twice last week and once this week, the
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Lord of hosts, God of all the angel armies, the God who is over all of the armies of heaven, stirs up the spirit of His people.
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To action. He stirs up. He is shown here in the text to stir up the hearts of individual people,
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Zerubbabel, Joshua. He can stir the hearts of kings. He can stir the heart of Pharaoh.
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He can stir up the heart of the prophets to proclaim. And here He stirs up the governor,
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Zerubbabel, and the high priest, Joshua, and all the remnant of the people. He stirs them up.
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The phrase stirred up is an awakening word. Not like stirring a pot. Not that kind of stir. Not even like stirring hot coals, although that's a metaphorical use of this idea of reawakening a fire is kind of the idea.
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It's like His people have fallen asleep to the work that He has for them. That possible church that that's us, the people of God, asleep to His worship day in and day out.
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And they have to be reawakened to His will. The prophet comes to awaken the people with the
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Word of God. God desires to awaken His people, and I don't know about you, but I awaken in the morning and still need to be stirred.
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You know what I'm talking about? I awaken in the morning, I go get my cup of coffee, and even with that much caffeine,
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I still need to be stirred. I still need my soul awakened. You know what
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I'm talking about? I'm not talking about groggy. I'm talking about when the haze is over, when the fog is lifted, and the sleep is out of my eyes, and maybe
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I've already had a shower, and I've already had my coffee. I still need to be awakened, church. You still need to be awakened.
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You still need to be stirred up. The prophet comes to awaken the people.
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The Word comes to awaken God's people. One is not awake if the only thing that has happened in your day is that you got up out of bed.
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You're not living awake, church, if the only thing that's happened in your life this morning is that you got out of bed.
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For the one who seeks to live for God, for His covenant people, church, think those who are redeemed by the very blood of His Son.
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We need another awakening, do we not? We need another stirring. We need to hear from the prophets.
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We need to read in the apostles. We need to see it in the epistles. We need to dive into the gospels.
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The call to consider and the call, the reminder of comfort are found there. Church, how will we go throughout the day without being awakened to His majesty, awakened to His holiness, stirred up to our own sinfulness, awakened and stirred up to His faithful promises to be with His people, stirred up by His promise of forgiveness in Jesus Christ?
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Are you stirred? Are you awakened? Or we can just run, attempt to run on the fumes from the wisps of some sermon or some book that we're reading we've basically forgotten.
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You know, you're probably not even really hardly remembering anything that I said up here.
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I'm recommending a study that Linda mentioned, a study for community groups this fall. It's called Behold Your God. It's a personal study that walks through 12 weeks, five days a week of studies.
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It's not homework. I've had some community group leaders who have kind of pulled back a little bit and gone, my group doesn't do homework.
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Well, great. This isn't homework. Perfect. If done daily, it just might help you forge a habit of spending time studying the
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Word each day. Yeah, there's only five in a week so that, you know, you get a little bit of a… you get a day there to have an early morning meeting or something and not be able to get to it, whatever.
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The goal of it is to forge habits. It's great content. The content is fabulous. It's not just a tool to try to get you to have a quiet time, but it is that.
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I mean, that's part of it. With fabulous content about the glory and majesty of God. That's the whole part, the whole point of it.
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The whole point of the study. And it's actually, my family's been going through it and it's been stirring me up. It's been awakening me.
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It's been helpful to me. And my hope is that as many people as possible would take advantage of those community groups that we have starting this fall.
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To maybe, maybe you're sitting here and you're like, I've just never been able to get that habit. I've never been able to get down to having like a time with God on a daily basis.
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This might be the launching point for you. This might be, maybe community groups and the accountability that's involved in that might be the thing that gets you going.
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Why, why would I even recommend that? Why should we do that? To heed the Word of the Lord in order to be stirred up by Him, church.
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Heeding the Word of the Lord to be stirred up by Him. And to be clear, this stirring up is, is a glorious and even somewhat mysterious act of God here in the text.
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Douglas Jones in his commentary on this very passage said, it is a mystery of grace that it is the
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Lord that produces a willing heart. It is the Lord that produces within us a willing heart.
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That, that gets right up into a conundrum, doesn't it? What does obedience look like? For God to produce within us a willing heart to do the things that He's called us to do.
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Why does the covenant remnant of God's people respond with getting back to the work of the temple and reestablishing the worship of God in Israel?
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Because God has stirred up their hearts. How has He stirred up their hearts? By sending the prophet to both rebuke and to comfort.
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And by moving in the hearts of His chosen people to repent and come back to His ways. Stirring them up.
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In verse 15, we find that it took the people 23 days to organize and obey and get back to work on the temple.
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They probably had, had to collect materials for that project and there's other things going on. It would have been a huge undertaking in 23 days to rally everybody together to begin the process of rebuilding that temple, especially when you understand this is the month of September.
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And you're going, oh yeah, the month of September, pretty busy month for us because that's back to school. Well, it was a busy time for them too because that was a harvest of fruit in that area.
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So, they weren't necessarily back to school. They were trying to survive. So, a big deal that they're able to muster everybody together for the purpose of rebuilding the temple of God that He's calling them to.
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They seem to manage it without complaint. God has stirred up obedience in the hearts of His people. Now, this morning,
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I'd like to close with some potential application points for us. A little bit more detail than I normally get with application, but it was a shorter passage and I think it's worth our time to kind of dig in a little bit deeper and let the
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Spirit kind of probe and mine your heart to the point where it's like, what needs to change in here?
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What really is going on? I believe that it's quite possible to be very knowledgeable about the Word, to be a regular student of the
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Word, to even have much of the Word memorized without really taking it to heart. In other words, without really living it, without really doing it.
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And here we see a stark example of the way that God rebukes His people for that very behavior.
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He identifies a problem. He sends His messenger with a message that guides His people to consider their ways.
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And His children, His remnant respond with obedience, reasonable fear.
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The people of God respond to the Word of God with corrective realignment, as the title of this series implies.
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And so, let me just ask you to consider what needs to be realigned for you today? What needs to be realigned?
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Is something off in your worship? Worship not being singing songs. Somebody came to me this past week and asked me, in response to the message last week, how do
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I work as an engineer for the glory of God? Don't work for your paycheck. Don't work only for your boss.
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Certainly do the things that he says and do it all at the end for the glory of God. Working for Him.
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These hands, these synapses, these ears, these eyes, all from Him and reflecting back to Him glory.
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So, you can worship Him as a school teacher. You can worship Him as a UPS employee, delivering, driving, loading, whatever it is.
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You can worship Him as an engineer designing new products, designing processes, as a builder.
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Whatever it might be, you can worship Him in your role, as long as you're not in some illegal trade.
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That's a little harder to sell drugs for Jesus. But, why do
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I even feel like I have to add that caveat? I wasn't looking at anybody particular. But, you know, is something off in your worship?
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Is something off in the way you're living? Is something off in the way you're relating to your family in terms of, like, my response to my wife, my response to my kids should be in turn worship to God in the way that I know
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He's designed me to lead. The desire that He has for me could not be clearer.
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It's a question of whether I'm aligning with that or not. So, what's off in your worship? What is God pointing to in your life?
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And here's some suggestions. Here's some thoughts. First one, might be the most uncomfortable of all, is there a show you need to stop watching?
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That's a possibility. Maybe there's something you need to just pull the plug on and go, we're not watching that anymore, that's done.
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Is there something you're indulging into excess that needs to be surrendered to Him? And I want to point out that that's not an issue of sin, that's just an issue of worship.
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That's an issue of kind of like, what am I valuing? What am I finding is really grabbing all of my attention and all of my time that probably needs to be dialed back.
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It's an issue of worship. Is there sexual sin in your life? There's no amount of that that's appropriate, not an ounce of that that's appropriate.
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There's no way you're worshiping God and doing that. Is there anger, gossip, or slander on your lips?
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That needs to be realigned. That needs to be brought in submission to Christ. Is there someone you need to forgive?
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Or relationships that need to be healed? Or is there something that needs to be put back together? Maybe it's on your part, making an apology, maybe it's on your part and the ball's in your court to forgive.
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I don't know what that might look like for you. Whatever it might be, let this passage remind you that God doesn't send
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His prophet with the intention of providing information. The goal of this message is not that you understand
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Haggai a little bit better. Wow, that's interesting, Don. Look, I understand
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Haggai. I didn't know he had anything to do with the temple. This is cool. It's not about winning trivia.
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He sent His prophets to affect change in His people. He has given us His Word to stir us up, church.
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And that's the second application. Get stirred. Get stirred.
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What Word? The Word of God is, the Word of God at the risk of sounding,
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I think you kind of hope your pastor is this way. I don't think every pastor has to be this way. But the Word of God is indeed a treasure to me.
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And I say that with all authenticity and truth. It's a treasure to me. I love it. It has not always been that way.
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And let me just share a little bit of my journey. God worked a miracle in my life nearly 20 years ago.
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And I don't think it's too overly dramatic to call it a miracle. It's changed the trajectory of my inner life as well as my outer life.
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He took me from being a hopeless, hopeless, hopeless night owl working with college students who wouldn't get up until 10 or 11 o 'clock in the morning.
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Not even having breakfast with my wife and my young kids because I work with college students. I got to be available in the evenings, man.
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I was a hopeless night owl and He turned me into an early bird. And you go, is that that big of a deal?
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Is that really that miraculous? Well, it's been part of my journey. I can't overemphasize how dramatic that change has been in me and to me.
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I went to a men's retreat up at Camp Bearcow. I think it was, it was the early 2000s.
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This is a long time ago. I heard the word spoken and I don't even really know what it was.
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But God used the word spoken that weekend through a man, Tom Harmon. He was preaching. I've heard him,
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I had heard him by that point a hundred times, I think. And for some reason, God took the word and stirred me up regarding prayer and time in the
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Bible. You're going to be a minister and you're not even, you're not even feasting on the word.
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You're not even talking to me daily, maybe a little bit here and there in between or, you know, before you eat or something like that.
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I think you probably, how many of you would say, I hope my pastor does more than that. I hope he prays a little bit. No, raise your hand.
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I hope my pastor prays a little bit more than just before he eats. Right? So, it was a pretty dramatic change.
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God stirred me up. I came home and I had to act. Stirred up results in action.
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Monday morning, my alarm went off at five o 'clock. I didn't hit snooze. I got up.
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I spent time in the word. I spent time praying. And by God's grace, this is not an act like Don thing.
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This is a respond to the Spirit thing. My alarm's gone off five o 'clock every day since.
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And I treasure, treasure, treasure that time. How many of you would guess that it was a little uncomfortable at the beginning?
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A little like, ugh, really? Five o 'clock?
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But that's what I needed, especially with my young family, especially with the time. How many of you just know that it's going to be a little bit tough to get time in whatever stage of life you're in?
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When do you make that time? And when is it going to be consistent? And how's that going to look? And what does quiet look like in a family with three young kids running around?
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You got to get up early, especially with my daughter. I don't want to embarrass her, but she is always, always, always the first one up.
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There's one in every family. This is a dual illustration because this stirring in my heart has resulted.
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That stirring in that weekend in my heart has resulted in constant stirring, regular awakenings.
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My heart has continued to be transformed by my time together in the mornings in prayer and in the Word. Sometimes I get up out of my study stirred by the reminder that just simply the only thing that I get,
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I'm in the middle of Leviticus or Numbers or long lists of words, and the only thing I walk away is God is with me today.
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God is with me today. That's enough. That stirs me up. Sometimes I'm stirred to conviction.
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Ah, I need to apologize for that. I need to make that right. Sometimes I'm stirred to action. I need to spend more time with this.
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But my time with God through his messengers, through his Word, is stirring me up.
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And every one of us who lives to see another day awakens to the new day, but only those who take the time to listen to God will truly be stirred to face the day.
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Are you awakened every day or are you merely awake? Lastly, let's consider the deepest encouragement
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I know to take comfort in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ with us.
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He is Emmanuel, God with his people, God with us. He is the fulfillment of this promise given to Haggai that God will indeed be with his people.
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The Lord, Yahweh, Jehovah, pledges his presence with his people here in verse 13, and that is fulfilled in an even more permanent way through Jesus Christ, who after his resurrection promised to be with his people even to the end of this age.
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He died to show just how much he is for us, and he lived a sinless life to show us he can hang here in a broken place.
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We're united with him in his death, united with him in his burial, and united with him one day in his resurrection.
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So let's take our time in communion this morning to reflect with hope and joy and gladness in the
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God who has made a way to be with us forever, him reaching out, him taking the initiative to be with us.
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God is faithful to convict, he is faithful to cause the sinner to fear, and he is faithful to calm that fear in his people through his promises.
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If you've placed your trust in his promises to redeem and restore you because he is the Lord who died for you, then come to the tables to remember his sacrifice for us.
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Take that cup of juice that represents his blood shed for us, and take a cracker that represents his body broken for in our place for us, and you can take those back to your seat.
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And after a time of reflecting on the actions that God desires of you in obedience from hearing this message this morning, maybe some things need to change for you this week like they needed to change for me, and it's not five o 'clock is not the answer.
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Maybe it is, maybe that literally is something that one of you needs to take on. I don't know, but there are things that need to change.
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I'm confident of that. Take the juice and the cracker in remembrance of him, and then let's get stirred up this week, church, stirred up to loving obedience, stirred up in the hope of his promises, and stirred up to keep listening to him.
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Let's pray. Father, I'm well aware of my inadequacy at stirring anything up.
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Matter of fact, I'm fairly confident I could put people to sleep, but your
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Spirit, I trust in him. I trust in him to do the work that we need in our hearts.
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I trust him to draw us deeper into relationship with Christ, to convict and to change, to give us a hunger and a desire for you.
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So, Father, I pray that your Spirit would press on each one of us even during this time of communion, this time of reflecting that we're okay with you because of what
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Jesus did. There's still ground to cover. There's still things that you want of us.
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There's places in our hearts that are dark, and you're just asking us to yield those over to you.
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So, Father, I pray that this would be a message of action, a message of change, and that it would truly, genuinely be you stirring in our hearts to make us more like your
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Son, Jesus Christ. We thank you for his blood shed for us. We thank you for his body broken in our place. I pray that this is a meaningful time of communion together in Jesus' name.